Sean and I started immediately hitting the wine and cheese while Julius hit the kitchen and made some CRAZY TASTY shrimp n' grits.

Not one to let everyone else bring allllll the goodies I offered to make dessert:

DELICATE LEMON SQUARES!

Note: 10x sugar=confectioners' sugar

These are pretty gi-gundo crowd pleasers. The batch I made tonight, though, seemed a wee bit sweet. Don't know what that was about but...it's not gonna keep me from eating 'em.

Some notes!

-Don't let the butter get quite to room temperature. Take it out of the fridge and squish it into the flour and sugar letting the heat from your hands soften it up. It'll make the crust WAY more manageable.

-No need to grease the pan

-zest the lemon before you cut and squeeze it. it's kind of a DUH thing but...ya know...

-go easy on the powdered sugar on top of the squares. these things aren't exactly crying for more sugar, ok?

-wait til the squares come just to room temp before cutting and serving. everyone loves a little squiggy dessert but...just go with me on this one.

-topping them with various berries is always a good call, too! Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, snozzberries...wait...

b) i wasn't sure this recipe was gonna turn out well and I don't want to fail that hard

c) laziness

So I'll refer you to the video of Alton Brown makin' southern biscuits. I followed his recipe pretty closely and tastiness was produced.

like...MEGA tastiness...

some notes first:

-I sifted the dry ingredients first for lightness. It's an easy step and you'll be glad ya did.

-No need for the butter to be super cold. Just take it out of the fridge and use.

-I used a combo butter and shortening. Now...you can use one or the other but the butter is really necessary for flavor and the shortening for flakiness. Just use both.

-When he says 'the dough will be sticky,' he means it. It looks as though you'll need to add some more flour before you turn the dough out of the bowl but DON'T do it. You'll add that flour in the 'patting out the dough' process.

-I didn't have any buttermilk BUT I had milk and white vinegar. So I made my own!

Put 1 Tablespoon vinegar in a 1 Cup measure

Add as much milk as it takes to fill the cup

Let stand for 5 minutes

VOILA! BUTTERMILK!!

-Using a rolling pin is totally unnecessary. Using a good amount of flour on your work surface, hands, and top of the dough is necessary, though. And I worked on parchment paper instead of a counter...it just made cleanup easier.

-When you turn the dough onto your parchment paper, fold in half then turn a quarter of the way. Repeat. This will give you layers! And pat gently...there will be NO man-handling of the dough! Got it?

-Flour your biscuit cutter well pre-biscuit cut and cut all the way through your biscuit before you turn the cutter.

-Thought they'd need an egg wash to make the tops all pretty but they browned up all by themselves.

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (I ONLY WENT TO 410)

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting.

(Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)